About This Show
The Santa Monica Playhouse Young Professionals’ Company
(YPC) and the American Cultural Youth Ambassadors present I Will!, a one-night-only Save the Playhouse Gala evening of food, entertainment and special surprises. I Will! celebrates the Playhouse’s 40th Anniversary and honors Playhouse Co-Artistic Director Evelyn
Rudie in her 50th year of uninterrupted theatrical and educational service to the community. It features a sumptuous sit-down dinner as well as highlights from the musical production Pastiche: a three-ring-circus of the
mind, a theatre-for-youth presentation which will have its UK premiere this July.
After forty years of being renters at its theatre complex in downtown Santa Monica, the internationally acclaimed Santa Monica Playhouse, oldest continuously producing theatre company and conservatory in the city, has
been given the opportunity to purchase its space. Celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, all efforts are being focused on a Save the Playhouse Campaign to enlist support for the survival of this community gem. If the
deadline cannot be met, they will be forced to close.
YPC performers include Danielle Bardellini, Juliet Berman, Ben Herold, Billie Dawn Greenblatt, Lizzy Karp, Azeen Khanmalek, Natasha Pettit, Zoe Salkinder, Ben Shipley, Leigh Siegel, Gray Silbert, Catherine Tooke, joined by adult event consultants Celeste Akiki, Kate Burleigh, Cammy
Truong, George J. Vennes III, John Waroff, Sandra Zeitzew and Playhouse Co-Artistic Director Chris DeCarlo.
There are just over thirteen months left in which to raise the remaining $400,000 needed to keep the Santa Monica Playhouse alive, with a benchmark of $100,000 to be met by June 30, 2002. Admission donations range from $40 to $50. All proceeds from I Will! go directly to this effort.